Law Firm Sues Cosby Over Legal Fees in Abuse Cases
Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis says the convicted comedian owes it more than $50,000 in fees.
September 05, 2018 at 04:50 PM
4 minute read
Just a few weeks before Bill Cosby is set to be sentenced, his former counsel is suing him for thousands in unpaid bills.
Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis filed a writ of summons Tuesday in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. The filing, while short on details, said the firm is seeking money damages of more than $50,000 for failure to pay for legal services.
Schnader Harrison partner Sam Silver has represented Cosby in both civil and criminal cases. Tuesday's filing does not specify in which capacity the legal fees at issue were billed. Silver, reached by phone Wednesday, declined to comment on the specifics of the claim.
Joseph P. Green, who is now representing Cosby, said Cosby and Schnader Harrison had disagreement over the amount of legal fees charged. ”Mr. Cosby's team offered to submit that dispute to mediation, but Mr. Silver's firm decided to file suit. We still hope to resolve the claim fairly,” Green said.
Silver disputed that contention. “From what we know, this is not a dispute about the fees,” he said. “Neither Mr. Cosby or anyone on his behalf has questioned a single bill we've entered, not a single time entry, not a single bill.”
Green, in response, said, “We're looking forward to resolving this in court, and not in the newspapers.”
Cosby's sentencing is set to begin Sept. 24 on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. He faces up to 10 years in jail for each count.
Silver entered his appearance in Cosby's criminal case last year, when lawyers Tom Mesereau and Kathleen Bliss were also hired to represent the comedian at his retrial. But Silver withdrew from the case in January, before the retrial had begun. He was replaced at the time by lawyer Lane Vines of Berger Montague.
Silver also represented Cosby in a breach-of-contract lawsuit against the comedian's accuser, Andrea Constand, which Cosby has since dropped. Cosby had alleged that Constand violated a settlement agreement the pair reached in 2006 by cooperating with law enforcement in the criminal case.
Cosby's legal team has become a revolving-door operation, with several local and out-of-state lawyers having come and gone since he was charged in December 2015.
Brian McMonagle, a name partner at Philadelphia firm McMonagle, Perri, McHugh & Mischak, was the only lawyer to stay with Cosby from his indictment through the first trial, which ended in a hung jury in 2017. Christopher Tayback and Joseph Sarles of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Sullivan in Los Angeles and Monique Pressley of The Pressley Firm in Washington, D.C., started with him, but they withdrew in 2016.
California lawyer Angela Agrusa entered her appearance in the fall of 2016, and worked on the first trial with McMonagle. They both withdrew from the case in August last year, as the retrial was approaching.
For his second trial, Cosby turned to Mesereau, who represented Michael Jackson in his criminal trial, as well as Bliss, appellate lawyer Becky James and local counsel Vines. They all withdrew their appearance after Cosby was found guilty on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault in April.
Local lawyers Joseph P. Green and Peter Goldberger are now representing Cosby at sentencing and post-conviction proceedings.
Green did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
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